


You looked like you'd been softened (like you never really loved the pain)

by akosmia



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Everybody Lives, M/M, Well somebody has to die because Victor Hugo said so, how did i manage to turn an "everybody lives au" into something more painful than the actual book, idk call it a talent, kind of, like tons of it, where may i remind you everybody dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:24:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The day he runs into Enjolras, though, is the day his damn ability to survive is really put to the test, and what he has done in his life (not much, admittedly) tumbles on him – Just like a barricade, is his first thought, and he curses himself, because he shouldn’t think about it, but when it comes to Enjolras, he rarely can divide the two images. They are linked, burned in the back of his mind. He still sees him, sometimes, standing on that barricade, eyes full of a tomorrow that never came, and, every time, he hates himself for thinking about it.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> AU in which Enjolras and Grantaire survive the barricade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You looked like you'd been softened (like you never really loved the pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, there. I am kinda of scared because it's the first fanfic I post here and English is not my first language and did I mention I'm kinda scared? I hope this does not suck and if it does, please be kind? I'm trying to learn. 
> 
> Title from Barricade, by Stars.

If there’s something – beside the wine, obviously – in which Grantaire can pronounce himself an expert without being overly presumptuous, that would be _surviving_. It may seem nothing, a cold comfort, a prize for someone who couldn’t make anything out of his life beside getting drunk and ruining everything worth considering, but Grantaire has never underestimated his ability to resist life even when life itself laughs at him. It’s not like he _hopes_ to survive – Grantaire has given up hope a long time ago, to be honest, and never looked back. No, it is a natural talent, keeping on living even when he doesn’t mean to, so he’s not even shocked when he finds himself surviving, again.

The day he runs into Enjolras, though, is the day his damn ability to survive is really put to the test, and what he has done in his life (not much, admittedly) tumbles on him – _Just like a barricade_ , is his first thought, and he curses himself, because he shouldn’t think about it, but when it comes to Enjolras, he rarely can divide the two images. They are linked, burned in the back of his mind. He still sees him, sometimes, standing on that barricade, eyes full of a tomorrow that never came, and, every time, he hates himself for thinking about it.

It’s not like he hasn’t run into the others, before. He has come across Feuilly, his clothes full of paint, and he has seen Joly and Bossuet, walking hand in hand, and he has run away from them, because the thought that they were the only ones to stay together even after all that happened was impossible to bear.. And, one day, he can swear he saw Combeferre at the gates of a school, philosophy books under his arms, and it came to his mind one of the many speeches Combeferre had given on the state of the Parisian universities and he had cried himself to sleep, thinking about the Combeferre of years before, long gone by now. _Everything_ is gone, after all.

All of this has been painful, obviously, but nothing is as painful as watching Enjolras, in this moment – because they are not torn apart by three years, a fallen barricade and the National Guards anymore, but all that there is between them are few meters of a rutty street, meters that, a long time ago, Grantaire would have covered in less than a minute, but that now scare him. Because, what is the point in meeting Enjolras? What is the point in seeing again someone who you have shared every breath with and that now is nothing but a stranger?

It is Enjolras who notices him – and that’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? Enjolras, who had never seen him in all those years, sees him now and walks to him, with his usual determined pace, and Grantaire notices that nothing has changed on that face and three years had nothing on his celestial and untouchable beauty. He’s Enjolras, real, flash and blood in front of his eyes, but there is something deeply different in him – it’s like observing a familiar painting in which all the details are wrong.

“Grantaire” says Enjolras, and that’s it. These are the first words Grantaire hears him speak in three years and it’s unbelievable it is his name, _his name_ , like it’s the only thing worth saying. Grantaire can see Enjolras’ lips move and utter those few letters he knows so well, but his mind is taken over by a memory of another life – when Enjolras used to murmur his name against his shoulder, kissing his skin with a shaky breath. But it was a time long ago, and it’s useless remembering it now. “I haven’t seen you since …”

 The words die in the chill air of a Parisian evening and Grantaire almost smiles, because, what can Enjolras say, how can he possibly put that reality in words? I _haven’t seen you since the barricade fell, leaving three corpses on the ground, and they drag me out of it and I stopped looking for you?_ There is no way Enjolras could say that.

“I know” he replies, then, a little smile on his lips – but there’s no joy in him. There are memories of a time long ago, memories he has tried to kill for all these years, but that now come to life, effortlessly, before Enjolras’ stare. “It’s been awhile” he adds, thinking about the three years that have divided them, thinking about the sound of the bayonets,  thinking about Enjolras’ hands, full of blood, and how the barricade fell. He closes his eyes for a second – because it’s too much, because these memories, buried in his heart, are breaking him into pieces, again. He knows how to survive, but he does not know how to live. “Were you headed somewhere?” asks, in the end.

Enjolras shrugs – and, Grantaire notices, he’s trapped in a long, dark coat, so different from the red jacket he used to wear three years ago, and Grantaire wonders, for a moment only, if he stopped wearing that jacket for it remembered him the colour of the blood on his hands. “I was just going home”.

Grantaire does not know what makes him linger on his presence – probably he will never know – but the thought of letting him go, the thought of seeing him disappear, sudden as he has appeared on this street (a ghost, a ghost from the past, here just for his torment) is too much for his battered heart, and Grantaire knows too well that, at the end of the day, he’s nothing but a masochist, and so he lingers on, an hesitant smile that he has always reserved to Enjolras.

“Would you care for some company? I know, I know, I can’t offer you the best of companies, and surely you’ll enjoy much better having someone who is not a drunken artist without a particular talent in his life …”

“Grantaire” says Enjolras, with the same exasperation of a time long ago, when the artist felt obliged to mock his speeches, and Grantaire is breathless for a minute, because it’s just like these three years had not passed at all – but they passed. They passed. The Musain is closed now and no one frequents the Corinthe anymore and Enjolras is in front of him, but so far away. “You should stop underestimating yourself” he adds, as if it is so simple, as if Grantaire can simply wake in the morning, one day, and not loath everything about himself. Grantaire has always admired this insane optimism in Enjolras, but he cannot understand how he can even believe in something like that – how he can believe that, one day, Grantaire will cease to underestimate himself, and will never loath and insult himself ever again. “You know I’ve always been fond of your company and I’d very much like to share the road with you” he says, glancing in his direction, blond curls falling slightly on his eyes.

Grantaire remembers a time in which his fingers (stained of charcoal, after a long time, because Enjolras was almost a dream and he had to draw him to convince himself he was real) used to sink in those curls, remembers a time in which he used to gently move them from his forehead, under Enjolras’ fond expression. His hand burns and aches for that familiar gesture – to move his curls out of his face, to play with it, to roll a strand around his finger – but it has been a long time and the Enjolras he is watching nowis only a pale reflection of the person he was.

Without saying a word, Grantaire flanks with him and they walk in silence for a while – the artist with his hands firmly clutched in fist to prevent himself from reaching out for Enjolras’ hand, in an usual gesture, so familiar in the past (always with a little bit of fear, because it was Enjolras’ alabaster skin the one his stained fingers were touching and he remembers a time in which his hands had left splashes of paint against Enjolras’ hips while Enjolras writhed beneath him, and _was it really necessary, Grantaire, thinking about this right now?_ )

In the end, Enjolras breaks this silence – Enjolras, who had never been good in small talk, Enjolras, who preferred to give great speeches, proclaiming ideals, instead of simply talking with someone, because it was simpler for him. “You are quiet, Grantaire. I think I never had heard you being so quiet for more than two minutes, watch in hand. You haven't got anything to say about your life?”

Grantaire smiles, bitterly. “I get by” says, simply, because he cannot tell him of his trembling hands every time he tries to stop drinking, of his dreams full of falling barricades, of the times he has cried because he had run into his friends on the streets, and of the times he has wept for all the friends he could not run into anymore. “I went back to make something of my art, even if nobody seems to appreciate it. I don’t blame them, though. I have a great respect for people with good taste and I am happy to see that nobody is contradicting himself by appreciating my art. After all, I stopped being good at what I do a long time ago, between my first and my second bottle of wine, I think” he rambles, but he does not say that his masterpiece – a bloody Apollo, with glorious blond curls that falls over his shoulder and eyes full of defeat – is hidden somewhere in his apartment, somewhere not even he remembers. “What about you? You have surely done something great with your life, unlike my worthless self”.

Enjolras scolds him, clearly disapproving his words – Enjolras had always said it, he thinks, he always said how he was not worthless, and Grantaire had tried to believe it, really. Grantaire, who took a great care to believe in nothing, had tried to convince himself of those words, because if Enjolras believed that he was worth something, then he could not disappoint him, he _had_ _to_ believe it. But that was then, and Grantaire had stopped trying as soon as the barricade fell.

“I get by” Enjolras repeats, with a tired smile. “I ran into Combeferre, once. Did you know he became professor? I wonder if he’s changed. And Marius and Cosette got married. And Joly became …”

Grantaire interrupts him with a hand on his shoulder – and that simple gesture can silence Enjolras so easily, and he looks at Grantaire with a shocked expression, as if that touch alone could destroy his whole life.

Grantaire can feel his fingertips burn, and so he lets him go, but his skin burns to feel that familiar presence again. “I know you always loved your friends, Enjolras, and that was one of the quality I loved the most about you. Your stupid, blind love for the others. But I asked about you, not them”.

Enjolras stays silent for a while and the dim light of the night casts silver shadows over his blond hair and Grantaire feels, terrible as ever, a desperate longing – as if he’s looking at something that used to belong to him, a long time ago, but that now is unreachable.

“I know” Enjolras finally speaks, and his long, red eyelashes touch lightly his marble check – and it almost looks like he’s afraid of looking him in the eyes. “I know. But for a very long time I haven’t been able to tell the difference. The Amis were everything to me and something like that …”

“Does not go away” finishes Grantaire, smiling bitterly. “I know” he adds, thinking about the last three years, thinking about how he wakes up every morning believing Enjolras is beside him, only to find an empty bed and a loneliness that makes his heart dry. He thinks of all the times he walked past the Corinthe, remembering their meetings and their fighting and the day they built a barricade and how it fell in less than twenty four hours, and yes, yes, yes, something like that does not go away, but it gets under your skin, in your veins, in your blood. His heart is full of memories from the barricade – memories of the Amis, of Enjolras.

Enjolras finally looks up at him and in his eyes Grantaire can read how much what happened has scarred him, and how much it has changed him, and in this moment he realizes that all the wrong details on his face are nothing but a direct consequence of the fact that that day has destroyed him, broken him, and recast him in the wrong way. And Grantaire realizes it now, realizes it when Enjolras smiles, bitterly – a smile so far from his personality, so far from that innate, stupid optimism of someone who had the courage to utter the word _love_ even at death’s door – and shakes his head.

“We were so naïve” he spats out that words as if it were an insult, and Grantaire can feel his heart breaking, again. “We were kids, drunk on summer, on words, on ideals. It was what you tried to tell us all along, wasn’t it, Grantaire? We were naïve, we wanted a revolution with ideals in which nobody believed anymore. You used to tell us every day, and we couldn’t hear you, we couldn’t understand you. But now I understand it, Grantaire, I understand _you_. And you were right”.

Grantaire shakes his head, thinking _No_ , _I was not right, no, it’s not true, don’t you dare tell me I was right_ , and he remembers a past in which Enjolras would have never told him he was right, because whatever Grantaire might say, he could not put out the flame of ideals and passion that burned so bright in him, and Grantaire remembers, with painful affection, how desperately Enjolras believed in the future – and if Enjolras believed in it, how could Grantaire deny it?

“I never said that” he replies, simply, causing a tired laugh from Enjolras.

“You surely thought that. I am aware of that, don’t lie to me. You don’t have to lie. I know you didn’t believe in anything we did, you loved to mock our faith, you thought we couldn’t change the world. And I was so blind, so soaked in delusion, I was not able to realizes how right you were”.

Hearing those words is like a shot through the heart – a bullet, and Grantaire remembers the sound of bullets, the way they pierce the skin, because he has seen it happen. He has seen boys being shot, before the barricade surrendered and fell, and he has seen Enjolras’ trembling hands try, without a pause, to stop the bleeding of Courfeyrac’s body, but the worst memory of that day is, maybe, _maybe_ , Enjolras’ face, the look of defeat in his eyes as the dragged him away.

“I believed in you” he whispers, a tired smile at the corner of his lips, because he has repeated those words a thousand time. He has whispered them  in the darkness against Enjolras’ throat, he has proclaimed them in their meetings, he has shouted them to convince Enjolras he could be useful in something. He has repeated those words to infinity and he has wondered, many times, if they could lose meaning, after a while. Maybe this is the day the lose meaning, after all. “I believed in you. I couldn’t believe in the future or in the ideas you proclaimed, but I believed in you. The world never cared about us and how we wanted to change everything. The world can’t change. But watching you talk and hearing you whisper ideals against my skin, it made me feel like I could believe it, like maybe, maybe, for the first time in years, the world could change, after all”.

Enjolras shrugs, looking away. “I am sorry to disappoint you” he says, in the end. “But you were wrong in trusting me. I am a man, and I was mistaken. I believed in the wrong ideas, I fell and I didn’t raise again”. Grantaire observes him walk, without catching his glance. “You always looked up at me like I was a God and I am not worthy of such a faith”.

“But you are, Enjolras, you are”.

“No, Grantaire, you were right. The world can’t change, and we were nothing but naïve kids who believed that they could do something about that”.

All the wrong details in Enjolras’ face become real and plain in this moment – because this is not Enjolras’ face anymore, it is the face of someone Grantaire doesn’t know, a stranger who looks just like Enjoras, but Enjolras is gone. Enjolras was passions and ideals and a flame who could not be tamed, but now, standing in front of him, there is only disappointment and failure, and this cannot be Enjolras. Enjolras would have gotten angry, Enjolras would have kept on fighting, he would have challenged the world again, because for one barricade that tumbled he would have built another hundreds.

And Grantaire remembers, with sudden clarity, all of those times in which he had hoped, had begged Enjolras to listen to him, all those times he had cried out, in their fighting, how he was going to end up in a fight he could not win, and he regrets even thinking about it, he regrets wishing for Enjolras to listen to him, because now Enjolras had listened to him and _look at it, Grantaire, look at it._

“I am home” Enjolras announces, in the dark. Grantaire looks up to meet Enjolras’ eyes, and now he looks at him with a deep, deep sadness. “Grantaire, I owe you an apology”.

Grantaire shakes his head, trying to get rid f the thought of facing a stranger in a body he knows by heart, but it only gets him an aching heart and the strong, strong temptation to run away. “You owe me nothing, Enjolras” he tries to say, but the words are shaky even to his ears.

“I do. I owe you an apology for disappearing on you, for disappointing you …” Enjolras looks at him with a mixture of resignation and guilty and, unexpectedly, reaches to touch his face – the tip of his finger brushing slightly over his skin, enough to awake thoughts and memories that maybe were better off dead. “For what is worth, I am sorry, Grantaire”.

Grantaire lets himself linger in that touch, when Enjolras’ hand becomes more determinate against his skin, and sighs. “I would have died for you. On that God forsaken barricade, I would have died for you”.

“I know”.

Enjolras smiles. It’s not a bitter smile, but neither the smile from the Enjolras he used to know – it is a smile born from resignation, from knowing that there is nothing that they can do to fix things. There is no way to go back and maybe there is no way to go on and all they can do is stay like this, until the end of the world and beyond.

It’s Enjolras, the one who closes the distance between them. In a heartbeat, his lips are on Grantaire’s and his hands are sinking in the artist’s black curls and the world seems to have started turning in right verse again, because Enjolras is clinging to him and Grantaire holds him firmly, and it’s like holding the sunset – and his mind wanders off, instinctively, to years before, when holding Enjolras, kissing his white skin, was just like holding the dawn and he cannot stop himself from thinking that things are different now and nothing can change this basic truth.

Grantaire doesn’t know how they end up in the small and modest apartment that belongs to Enjolras, but he realizes he is inside only when he slams Enjolras to the wall, kissing the skin of his throat, frantically trying to remove all the layers of clothes between them, just to kiss every inch of his skin. It’s like coming back home, thinks Grantaire, while Enjolras whispers his name against his lips, so familiar it makes his heart ache. It’s like coming back home and finding out that someone destroyed it while you were away and all that you’ve got are ruins and ashes – and still, you can’t walk away because it’s home.  Enjolras is _home_ , and he kisses him like he’s finally found his way back to him.

Grantaire knows every corner of Enjolras’ body, every shade of the blue of his veins against the translucent skin of his wrist. He has counted all the freckles on his shoulders, he has traced all his bones with his fingertips, and kissing him against the wall of a tiny apartment, Enjolras’ hand against his back, warm and ready to leave scars, is like finding himself again, finding Enjolras again, rediscovering a world he had thought lost.

Enjolras helps him with his clothes, hastily, without his usual care, and kisses him urgently, as if he hasn’t wanted anything else in the world in these three years, and every kiss is a whisper, a confession, _I’m sorry, I’m not the person you loved anymore, I’m sorry, I loved you and I would have let you die with me, I’m sorry_ , and Grantaire drinks these words,  and lets them sink into his heart. His hands explore Enjolras’ skin and he remembers a time when he had drawn that body in his incredible beauty, his hands trembling before that terrible perfection, and he remembers the light kisses Enjolras left on his neck when he showed him his drawing. Every movement is a memory and Grantaire wonders if even for Enjolras is just like that, if for Enjolras is so painful and beautiful holding someone who doesn’t belong to you anymore.

“Bed” whispers Enjolras, against his lips, his breath broken, his eyes wide and dark – abyss, abyss in which Grantaire doesn’t want to lose himself again, or maybe he never found himself in the first place, he is still there, in the cerulean of those iris. “God, Grantaire, _please_ ” he adds, his voice shaky, and, between kisses, he drags him towards the bedroom.

When he thrusts into him, Grantaire reaches for another kiss and Enjolras holds him, tracing his name against his shoulder with his lips, just like those three years hadn’t passed, and it seems to Grantaire he’s making love with a memory, the ghost a past life, because the Enjolras that is kissing his neck, trembling beneath him is a different Enjolras and if the world were a different place, maybe he could have loved him, maybe they could have loved each other, but the world isn’t different and he’s still Grantaire and nothing has changed except for Enjolras.

Enjolras whispers “I love you, I love you, I love you” against his skin, before closing his eyes and relaxing against him, and Grantaire clings on him, before crushing on the body beneath him, his head on the fragile shoulder that he knows so well, out of breath, his heart beating so fast it almost seems it wants to escape from his chest to hide there, between Enjolras’ collarbones.

“Let me sleep here” Grantaire says. 

Enjolras caresses his face, with a gentleness that has nothing to do with the urgency of their desire. “We are too tired for this”.

And Grantaire knows what he means, he can feel those words echoing in his mind, just like bullets. _We are too tired for this, we are too tired and there are wounds that cannot heal and we are too tired, tired, tired, to fall in love again, and I would, I swear I would, I would fall in love with you again, but it’s too late and I’m not the person I used to be and I cannot love you as you want to be loved._

And Grantaire knows that, in most painful way, Enjolras is right – because Enjolras is not Enjolras anymore and what he loved in him died that day of the barricade and yes, he still can see shades of him, shades of the man full of ideals he met a long time ago, but they are hidden under the new Enjolras, and he cannot afford to love him.

“Just for tonight” he whispers, lips firmly pressed against the freckled shoulder beneath him, and Enjolras smiles – and this is the first _Enjolras smile_ he sees. For just one single, bright moment, Grantaire deludes himself, and pretends nothing ever happened, pretends the man beside him is Enjolras, _his_ Enjolras.

Enjolras holds him close to his heart, his hands at the small of his back, burning his skin with his fingertips, and kisses his forehead, as if he’s reassuring him after a nightmare. “For what is worth, I really love you, Grantaire”.

Grantaire smiles against his chest. “I know. I love you too”.

\--

Years later, in a terrible February, 1848, two men find themselves again, at the outskirts of faubourg Saint-Antoine, watching barricade arise from far away, and the world change before their eyes.

“What a shame I stopped believing” says Enjolras.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Enjolras, Weird as it is, I believed hard enough for both of us” replies Grantaire, beside him and reaches out for his hand. “Do you permit it?”

Enjolras presses his hand with a smile.

 


End file.
